Kyle Rittenhouse Is Not Guilty The jury decides on the facts, but politicians continue to distort the truth.
The saga of Kyle Rittenhouse has shown the extent of America’s political polarization. But the not guilty verdict returned by 12 unanimous jurors in his Kenosha, Wis. murder trial Friday shows that when presented deliberately with evidence and forced to reason with one another, Americans can still agree on basic facts.
And the facts presented at trial made it very hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense when he shot three men, killing two, who attacked him amid an anarchic scene in downtown Kenosha last summer when he was 17.
The encounters were captured on video. Joseph Rosenbaum sprinted after Mr. Rittenhouse, who ran away across a parking lot. Rosenbaum lunged toward the rifle before Mr. Rittenhouse, who was trapped against parked cars, fired. According to Mr. Rittenhouse and another witness, Rosenbaum had threatened to kill the teenager earlier in the night.
As Mr. Rittenhouse tried to flee toward police lines, he was pursued by a mob. The teenager eventually fell down, and fired when one man tried to kick him in the face, another tried to hit him with a skateboard, and another approached him and raised a pistol.
The prosecution said Mr. Rittenhouse was a “chaos tourist” who provoked the violence. Yet the teenager worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha, where his father lived. However bad his judgment in showing up with a weapon he didn’t own at a riot, his intention was to stand guard in front of businesses and administer first aid.
As all this was laid out in open court, the prosecution’s case appeared to flounder. Pundits baying for a guilty verdict blamed the Kenosha County Judge, Bruce Schroeder, for favoring the defense. Judge Schroeder’s real offense was weighing motions carefully to allow a fair trial. His admonishment of the prosecution for questioning Mr. Rittenhouse about exercising his right to remain silent was entirely appropriate. Remember when the civil liberties of criminal defendants were a liberal cause?
The case seemed to tilt back toward the prosecution when late in the trial it stressed the importance of drone footage that it claimed showed Mr. Rittenhouse raising his weapon before he was chased and ran. Yet the defense apparently did not get a copy of the full-resolution footage until after it had rested its case, meaning it missed an opportunity to have an expert review the grainy image.
That might have been grounds for a mistrial if the jury had returned with a guilty verdict, as the image became key to the prosecution’s closing argument. Yet the seven women and five men on the jury, selected from a random pool of Kenosha residents just over two weeks ago, were able to agree Friday morning. They surely have a range of political views (Kenosha was closely split in the 2020 elections). None was convinced of Mr. Rittenhouse’s guilt, though they had in evidence the drone image the defense didn’t get a chance to fully rebut.
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Meanwhile, Democrats and the progressive media continue to mislead shamelessly about the shootings and undermine the justice system in the bargain. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter that the verdict is a “miscarriage of justice” that “justifies federal review by DOJ.” Don’t put it past Merrick Garland’s increasingly politicized Justice Department to comb through the federal code to find something to charge Mr. Rittenhouse with.
Other politicians are railing against the verdict in racial terms, though the men Mr. Rittenhouse shot were white. Let’s hope their denunciations don’t encourage more anarchy in Kenosha of the kind that made these shootings possible in the first place. When violent protests are allowed, or even encouraged by political leaders, people will act to defend property and themselves.
President Biden, who labeled Mr. Rittenhouse a white supremacist last year, at least said on Friday that he respects the verdict and called for peace. But he added gratuitously that it makes him “angry and concerned.” The chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. should be cautious in casting any doubt on a verdict.
The conduct of prominent figures in presuming Mr. Rittenhouse’s guilt was disgraceful (social-media platforms also censored posts in his defense). But against such polarizing civic conduct from elites stands the admirable performance of 12 non-famous Wisconsinites, who diligently listened to evidence and arrived at a verdict that deserves respect.
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